The invention relates to a vapor extraction device disposed in the region next to cooking or other open hot-food areas for food preparation. The extraction device has an intake device, disposed approximately in the plane of the open hot-food areas, for the vapors emanating from these areas, and a suction device for discharging these vapors.
In order to draw away cooking or other hot-food vapors, it is customary, even at the household level, to employ vapor extraction hoods or vapor extraction chimneys that are disposed above the cooking point or hot-food point. The vapors rising during the thermal preparation of foods are picked up by these devices, normally filtered and usually blown through a fan into the open, but sometimes also back into the work space.
However, configurations that have their intake orifices laterally next to the hot-food region are also in the prior art. With regard to fryers or grills, the prior art also includes measures for drawing away vapors. The suction devices are disposed next to the fryers or grills in the operating plane of the devices and, thus, discharge to the side and downward the vapors that are emitted during the respective hot-food preparation process. For such a purpose, blowers with high air delivery capacities are required because the suction flow direction is not in the natural upward direction of propagation of the hot-food vapors. Nonetheless, as compared with the vapor extraction hoods and vapor extraction chimneys disposed above the hot-food areas, the vapor extraction measures disposed laterally next to the hot-food areas have an advantage that the region above the hot-food areas is more freely accessible and visible.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a vapor extraction device disposed in the region next to cooking or other open hot-food areas that overcomes the hereinafore-mentioned disadvantages of the heretofore-known devices of this general type and that can be positioned with its intake region in relation to the hot-food point, as required, and that, nevertheless, enables the operator to have advantageous access to the food in preparation and a convenient view of it during the preparation process.
With the foregoing and other objects in view, there is provided, in accordance with the invention, a vapor extraction device disposed in a region next to a cooking or open hot-food area for food preparation, including a suction device for moving and discharging vapors from the open hot-food area, a length-compensating pipe having a pipe axis, the pipe fluidically connected to the suction device, and an intake. The intake has an elongated intake section for receiving the vapors emanating from the area, a height adjustment device, and a pivot. The intake section has end sections, one of which defining an opening connected to the pipe and fluidically coupled to the suction device therethrough. The height adjustment device moves the intake section from a closed position approximately at the plane of the area to open positions at different vertical heights above the plane above a food preparation container. The pivot has a pivot axis passing through a pivot point of the opening and corresponding to the pipe axis. The pivot moves the intake section about the pivot axis as a function of a vertical position of the intake section and to a position over the container placed at the area. The intake, pivot axis, pipe, and pipe axis are disposed at a side of the area
A vapor extraction device having these features according to the invention can be operated in the same way as a conventional suction device disposed next to a hot-food area, for example, a fryer or a grill, in that the intake region of the vapor extraction device is moved slightly out of the retracted position of rest. Although further outward movement impairs access from the side to the thermally treated food in preparation, it increasingly improves the suction action on the hot-food vapors emitted.
Preferably, however, in the state in which it is moved out upward to a greater or lesser extent, the intake device is also disposed in a manner to be pivoted out over the open hot-food area or a food preparation container placed onto the open hot-food area, so that the hot-food vapors emitted can be drawn in and discharged in a particularly intensive and safeguarded manner.
In accordance with another feature of the invention, there are provided a motor drive and a gear assembly connected to the motor drive. The gear assembly is connected to the height adjustment device and the motor drive drives the height adjustment device through the gear assembly.
A drive motor preferably serves for adjusting the height of the intake device and, by self-locking, can ensure that the intake device can dwell in any desired height positions. In the moved-out and moved-back end positions, appropriately disposed limit switches switch off the motor. Lateral outward pivoting is made possible by a tubular column that is disposed on a longitudinal side and through which the drawn-in hot-food vapors can be transported away through a suction device disposed at a distance. The outward pivoting is advantageously carried out by hand because it provides better alignment of the intake region with the area where vapors are to be drawn away. To return from the pivoting position into the original position, in which the intake device can be moved downward finally into the locking position, there is, for each of the two outward-pivoting sides, a slotted guide that, flush-mounted, acts on the tubular column.
In accordance with a further feature of the invention, there is provided a slotted guide connected to the height adjustment device and the pivot. The slotted guide controls a pivoting position of the intake section as a function of the vertical position of the intake section.
In accordance with an added feature of the invention, there are provided a housing body and bearing blocks fixedly disposed in the housing body. The pipe axially mounts the intake section and the bearing blocks guide movement of the pipe with respect to the housing body. Preferably, there are provided drive members and the bearing blocks are coupled to the drive motor in an axial direction of the pivot axis through the drive members for setting a height of the intake section.
In accordance with an additional feature of the invention, the housing body has regions disposed at a distance from one another, the bearing blocks include a guide block and two identical bearing blocks, a column assembly aligns the two bearing blocks with respect to one another at regions of the housing body distant from one another, and the guide block is disposed between the two bearing blocks, is substantially similar in construction to the two bearing blocks, is axially fixedly connected to the pipe, is rotatably connected to the pipe, and is displaceably disposed on the column assembly. Preferably, the guide block is connected to the drive motor through the gear assembly.
In accordance with yet another feature of the invention, there are provided two deflecting rollers and a toothed belt connecting the guide block to the drive motor through the gear assembly. The toothed belt is guided parallel to the pipe through the two deflecting rollers.
In accordance with yet a further feature of the invention, one of the two deflecting rollers is a toothed belt wheel coupled to the drive motor through the gear assembly.
In accordance with yet an added feature of the invention, the pivot point is centered in the opening.
In accordance with a concomitant feature of the invention, the side of the area has a depth axis and the intake section has two end sections and a longitudinal center axis spanning from one of the end sections to another of the end sections and the longitudinal center axis is parallel to the depth axis.
Other features that are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in the appended claims.
Although the invention is illustrated and described herein as embodied in a vapor extraction device disposed in the region next to cooking or other open hot-food areas, it is, nevertheless, not intended to be limited to the details shown because various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims.
The construction and method of operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.